Monday, March 05, 2018

Italian Election Maps

Votes in the Italian election have not all been counted but enough votes are in to indicate that there will be a lot of negotiations in the coming weeks in order to form a a working coalition for government. The centre-right coalition appears to be slightly ahead in the Italian election, although the country appears to be heading towards a hung parliament, with none of the current coalitions having enough votes to take overall control.

The Five Star Movement appear to be the biggest winners in this election. This relatively new party refuses to position itself in the traditional left-right split in politics. In the European Parliament it has been in a group of quite extreme right-wing parties but it has many ideological differences with these other European right-wing parties. For example it has supported same-sex marriage and has ecological policies similar to European Green parties.

La Repubblica's interactive election map shows the results in each electoral region. Regional Elections 2018 is a traditional choropleth map in which each electoral district is colored to show the party of the leading candidate. If you hover over a district you can view the percentage of the vote won by the three leading candidates. You can also view the turnout in areas where the vote count is complete.

The Corriere della Sera has also opted for a traditional choropleth map for its election map. Its Risultati Elezioni Politiche 2018 colors each electoral district by the color of the coalition. The newspaper has used color intensity to show the margin of victory. Shades of individual colors indicate the strength of victory in each district. A lighter shade shows a smaller victory, while a stronger shade indicates a larger victory for the winning coalition.

Both maps show a big geographical split in the country. The Five Star Movement has dominated the south of Italy, while the centre-right coalition has proved popular in the north. The ruling centre-left coalition has lost a lot of support in this election, but it retains some areas of support in Northern Italy.